Victoria Police have begun distributing body cameras to 11,000 frontline officers. Officers won’t be required to tell the public when the cameras are filming. Footage will be kept for 90 days. As body cameras become more popular with police, a new study published in the journal Ergonomics in Design notes that cameras mounted on the head—on glasses or on a hat—provide a better view of a situation than those mounted on the torso, which can be obscured when officers lift their arms.

Prison violence

Figures released by the UK Ministry of Justice show that assaults in prisons in England and Wales are at record highs. In the past year there were 29,485 incidents of assault, 8,429 of which were assaults on prison staff. The mass exodus of experienced prison guards representing more than 70,000 years of cumulative experience in the last decade suggests that there’s a chronic problem.

White supremacists indicted

Federal officials indicted 57 white supremacists from six different gangs in Texas for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and other illegal narcotics. The indictment comes a year after the prosecution of 89 white supremacists for drug trafficking, the largest white supremacist gang prosecution in US history. After that prosecution, US Attorney John Parker argued that the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas and Aryan Circle were ‘essentially decimated’. Yet both gangs feature in the latest indictment, speaking to white supremacy’s pervasive influence.

CT scan

Follow the money?

Ministers and experts worldwide gathered in France for a two-day conference on combatting terrorism financing. French officials identified 416 French donors to Islamic State, noting that Daesh brought in about US$2 billion between 2014 and 2016. The conference culminated in more than 70 countries pledging to bolster their efforts to stem the money flows. However, terrorism expert Peter Neumann said governments face challenges in achieving that goal, arguing that governments need to understand why previous efforts have failed. Neumann has said previously that tracking terrorist financing is expensive and difficult—most funds never enter the global financial system or are moved in unnoticeably small transfers.

Telegram from the Ayatollah

Iran banned messaging app Telegram earlier this week. The ban follows a similar move by Russia, which sought to obtain the encryption keys protecting private messages. Telegram is widely used in both countries, but is also the ‘app of choice’ for jihadists because of its end-to-end encryption and unique messaging features. Telegram was used by a suicide bomber in Russia last year, and by jihadists in France and the Middle East.

(Re)Igniting conflict in the Balkans—a clarification

Balkan Insight published the findings of an investigation into Christian extremist Jim Dowson, ‘Britain’s most influential far-right activist’. The investigation found that Dowson was a British nationalist who trains Serb far-right groups for ‘online war’ as part of what some see as an ‘imminent’ Christian–Muslim war in majority-Muslim Kosovo. Kosovo–Serbia is an old conflict flashpoint, and a series of incidents this year has increased tensions between the two countries. Anti-racism organisation Hope Not Hate has an in-depth analysis of Mr Dowson’s connections and operations. Last week we stated that Mr Dowson ‘armed and trained’ these Serb groups. This should have been more accurately stated to be an accusation, as it was in that source publication: ‘a Serbian parliamentarian has accused Dowson and KTI of supplying arms to Serb militias in Northern Kosovo, a charge that Dowson (who was named in the Serb parliament) refutes and claims he is taking legal action against’. We apologise for not being clearer on this matter.

The Egyptian government has proposed a new law to ban fake weather reports. The ability to forecast weather patterns is important to emergency response teams, who must develop risk management strategies. The Overseas Development Institute highlights the importance of forecasting weather and hazards for decision-making in early action responses, in particular the importance of forecasting data to indicate where funding should be allocated. Egypt’s decision raises the question of whether limiting weather forecasting to the Egyptian government will affect disaster preparedness.